


Fine Print: The Connections Remix

by Curuchamion



Category: Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: Gen, MFU Exhibition Remix Challenge, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-30
Updated: 2010-05-30
Packaged: 2017-10-13 08:48:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curuchamion/pseuds/Curuchamion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Napoleon gets a wedding invitation from an old flame.</p><p>  <a href="http://curuchamion.livejournal.com/53890.html">Originally posted on LiveJournal.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Fine Print: The Connections Remix

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theladyrose](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=theladyrose).
  * Inspired by [Fine Print](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/29805) by theladyrose. 



_Darling Leon: This is to tell you I’m getting married. Your mother gave me your address; I think she still wishes we’d get back together. Wouldn’t that be too funny, Leon?_

Probably. Maybe. It depends on your sense of humor.

I scan through the rest of the letter. There’s not much substance – my high school sweetheart, still bitter from our long-ago breakup, is marrying a high-level Thrush munitions dealer. And while she doesn’t say much of anything flat out, she certainly implies. Thrush now knows exactly where I live.

Not that they’d do anything so crude as blow up my apartment in the middle of the night. UNCLE’s newest improved security system should be enough to guard against kidnapping attempts, but I’d better watch out while opening my mail for a while.

Mail. I hope she didn’t slip anything nasty into the ink. It’d be just like Trixi to send me a literal poison-pen letter for a wedding invitation.

 _Can_ you even put a toxin in ink? Would it do anything after it dried?

Better safe than sorry. I head over to wash my hands at the sink.

Mom will never get it. I _am_ settled down, as much as I care to be. My women are butterflies – yes, Trixi too, and if her Thrush fiancé doesn’t know that by now he never will. There are a lot of people like her in the world: giving their bodies freely for a day or a week, or even a life, but trusting their souls to no one. Ever.

Once I thought I was like that. Trixi and I made a good pair, then. Not anymore.

The man who owns my soul is curled up in my favorite armchair, doing a crossword puzzle. Some people might wonder if he knows how much he matters to me; after all, we don’t talk about it. We tease and pester and take the mickey out of each other, and when we share a bed – as we often do, on the job – it just means a lot of scuffling and kicking and stealing of sheets. Illya has very pointy elbows.

He looks up from his crossword, pushing his black-rimmed glasses up his nose. “Napoleon,” he asks, taking his pencil out of his mouth for a moment, “what’s a six-letter word for ‘one who lays down his life’? I tried ‘martyr’, but that would make 22 down ‘Ypsilanti’, and it—“

I try to hide my smile. “I think the word you’re looking for is ‘friend’. Greater love hath no man than this?”

“To lay down his life for a friend.” Illya gives a satisfied little nod at the rightness of that definition and goes back to his paper.

Oh yes, he knows.


End file.
